When Nehemiah (comforter) arrived in Jerusalem to rebuild the walls, the first thing he did was survey the walls and assess the problem. In the same way, the work of the Holy Spirit (our Comforter) puts us in touch with our brokenness. Many believers however (in the name of "faith"), refuse to face their problems head-on. They often say things like they are believing God for a miracle and therefore focusing on His Word, not their troubles. Obviously this can be a powerful spiritual strategy once we've seen what the problem is, but too often it is an attempt to avoid the problem. Denial. Anytime we cannot look at our challenges without getting discouraged, we are living in denial, not faith. An example I heard yesterday: a mom received a prophetic word about her daughter being an actress (the best in the world), so her daughter signed up for acting school. Part way through, the mom attempted to get her daughter out of the school (she was afraid the school would take her daughter away from God). Interestingly, the daughter is not at all a good actress, because she struggles to be authentic (and authenticity is necessary to act like someone else). The mom uses the word to avoid true growth in her daughter. Another example: a couple knows they are called to display Jesus and His bride to the world through their marriage, so they hold onto that, declare it, and pray it, but don't actually look at the places of conflict where they are displaying something else. They use the word to avoid true growth. Denial of problems is the fruit of fear, not the root of faith. True faith can evaluate the circumstances honestly without growing hopeless because it can see both the problem and the promise at the same time. It's like going to the doctor but not telling him all the symptoms. If the doctor doesn't know what's really happening, he can't diagnose, nor treat the issues properly. He is disempowered to heal because the patient isn't honest about what's really going on.

How we handle the sin of others influences our own susceptibility to it. Gentleness is protection. Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. Galatians 6:1

We quote scriptures that tell us what God did in us, but sometimes we aren’t standing on them, we are hiding behind them. Avoiding our pains, losses, betrayals…and in the name of “faith”, we pretend we don’t need to heal. When we do this, it may not be genuine faith, but rather the fear of not being in faith. We end up not “working out our salvation”, and it merely becoming what we say, but not how we live.

There are so many times we are performing instead of showing what’s really going on in us. One was to recognize it is when we say we’re “fine” when we aren’t. Here’s an acronym for fine: F-eelings I-nside N-ot E-xpressed Whenever we say we’re fine, it can be helpful to check on ourselves, or our spouse, or our kids, if there are some feelings that need to be expressed.

When one of us is in pain, the world stops and we all listen. If you’re in pain, you are the priority.